Development of Silviculture. 57 
tion or virgin forest), excepting a number of clean boles, 
one every ten to twelve paces being left for seed and 
nursetrees. The good results in reproduction stimulated 
owners of adjoining estates to imitate the method 
(1737). 
The observation that in beech forest the young crop 
needed protection and succeeded better when gradually 
freed from the shade of the seed trees, especially on 
south and west aspects where drought, frost and weeds 
are apt to injure it on sudden exposure, led to the 
elaboration of the principle of successive fellings. 
In the ordinance of Hanau as early as 1736 three 
grades of fellings were developed, the cutting for seed, 
the cutting for light, which was to begin when the young 
crop was knee-high, and the removal cutting when man- 
high. 
This method spread rapidly and was further developed 
by the addition (in 1767) of a preparatory cutting, to 
secure a desirable seedbed, and by lengthening the period 
of regeneration and elaborating other detail, so that by 
1790 the principles of natural regeneration under nurse- 
trees for beech forest were fully developed in Western 
Germany. 
In other parts hardwood forest management was but 
little developed. The Prussian Forest Ordinance of 1786 
contented itself with forbidding the selection method, 
but declaring natural regeneration, as practiced in the 
pineries, not applicable; while the Austrian Ordinance 
of 1786 recognizes only clearing followed by planting as 
the general rule. 
b. Artificial Reforestation. Although sporadic at- 
tempts at sowing and planting are on record as early as 
